


Make This Place Your Home

by just_another_classic



Series: Finding Neverland [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 20:29:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18483787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_another_classic/pseuds/just_another_classic
Summary: Gideon Gold and Juliet Jones discuss the ethics of using "blood money" and the impact of having fathers who are murderers. (Finding Neverland-verse)





	Make This Place Your Home

**Author's Note:**

> Over the course of writing Finding Neverland, I've received a number of requests to write more about Gideon and Juliet's relationship. I've hit a bit of a roadblock with FN, so I'm writing this (and others) in hopes of getting the muse back from the story that started it all.
> 
> Timeline-wise, this is set about five years before the events of Finding Neverland, and two years before Gideon and Juliet get together.

“Wow. This place is fantastic.”

Gideon watches as Juliet walks around the space, the natural light filtering through the windows creating a golden halo effect out of her blonde hair. She’s barefoot at her own insistence -- “I _ am not risking my boots scuffing your new floor!”  _ \-- and he notes how her toes are painted a shocking pink, a contrast to her black nails. She walks over to one of the windows, and lets out a low whistle of appreciation.

“Really, this place is amazing. This is seriously yours?”  

“Seriously.” He crosses his arms over his chest, his frown deepening as he leans his back against the kitchen island. Juliet’s praise isn’t unwarranted. The condo is exceptional -- open floorplan, two bedrooms, hardwood floors, and plenty of natural light. It’s a dream, and certainly better than anything he could imagine owning in New York. “Well, technically my parents own it, but my father was already discussing changing it over to my name.”

“Lucky.” There’s no sarcasm in her tone like he’d expect, but there’s some underlying humor there. She crosses what is supposed to be the living area and walks into the kitchen, her right index finger trailing over the granite countertop. “You think If I get into med school, my parents would buy me a condo?”

“I’m pretty sure if you decided you wanted to go to med school, your parents would be convinced that you were cursed.” 

“And they would be right.” Gideon turns to see her opening the fridge, and she pulls out two bottles of the beer she had brought him. ( _ “You told me your parents bought you a place, so I brought a housewarming gift.” _ ) He bites his tongue to keep from giving the lecture he wants to make. She’s not yet twenty-one, and she’s bound to get caught with that fake ID of hers eventually. But, he feels overwhelmed and he desperately needs a drink, so he takes the beer without chiding.

“God, this is seriously getting to you, isn’t it?” she asks, because  _ of course _ Juliet expects him to give her a lecture. That’s their thing, this weird sort of dynamic they formed since she they bumped into each other months ago in a coffee shop downtown -- his weird sort of not-entirely-brotherly protectiveness clashing with her desire to really let loose.

“It wouldn’t get to you?”

“Have you seen the price of rent?” Juliet answers with a snort. She lifts herself on the island, her long legs dangling over the counter. She takes a long pull before asking, “What’s Rachel think?”

“Rachel doesn’t know.” He doesn’t meet her eyes when he answers, instead focusing on the bottle in his hand as guilt churns in his stomach. 

“Bad form, Gid.” 

“Yeah, I know.” He takes another drink, still not meeting what he’s sure is Juliet’s disappointing stare. Gideon knows he’s somewhat in the wrong, that there’s some unspoken rule that says he ought to have told his girlfriend of almost two years about his recent windfall before the girl he didn’t even consider a friend a year ago. But the situation is complicated, and there are things in his life that Rachel is unable understand that only someone from Storybrooke could. “What could I even say?”

“Well you could begin with ‘So my father bought me a fucking condo in Washington Heights,’. That’s what you texted me.” 

“And then what? Tell her I’m very much considering telling them I don’t want it because it was bought with blood money.” He glances over to Juliet. Her expression is worse than disappointed, it’s just sad. “You know I can’t.”

“You could.”

“It’s not that easy, and you know it.” He catches her turn her right wrist away from him Even if he can’t see it, he knows she has a tattoo of the cardinal points drawn on her list in black ink. He remembers how he’d talked her out of getting it one drunken evening, and how two days later she’d sent him a picture of the drawing inked on her skin. “What’d you tell Adam about that?”

She glowers at the mention of her boyfriend. “That compasses are a thing for my family -- which is the truth.” 

“Bet you didn’t mention the beanstalk. Or the piracy.” 

“No, I didn’t.” She rolls her eyes. “But it’s different with us. Adam and I just got together. You two have been dating for awhile.”

“Yeah, well, it’s complicated.” He knows he should at least examine the reasons for why he doesn’t particularly want to reveal to his girlfriend his fairy tale history. They’re probably similar to the reasons why he and Rachel haven’t discussed their plans post-graduation, when he’ll still be in New York and she’ll be be jetting off to Mozambique for the Peace Corps, the words ‘ _ expiration date _ ’ weighing heavy in the back of his mind. “Can we please stop discussing my love life?”

“And start analyzing your brooding? Sure.”

“It’s more than just brooding.” 

“And yet, here you are, in your fancy condo that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, sitting here with a drink in your hand, acting all gloomy and ‘woe is me’.” She raises a brow, acting as if her point has just been proven as fact. “Sounds like brooding to me.”

“I didn’t invite you over here to mock me.”

“And why did you invite me over, Gideon Gold?” She quirks her head, her blonde hair falling over her shoulder. We she anyone else, he might have thought she was flirting with him, but he’s gotten to know her well enough to realize this is Juliet in her natural form -- at ease and charismatic. Normally it’s endearing. Now, with the mood he’s in, it’s frustrating. 

“I invited you over because I needed someone to talk to, and Robin’s busy.” 

“Ouch,” she says with a small laugh, but he can see the hurt in her eyes, and he feels instantly bad. While it’s true that he’d usually call Robin whenever he needs to vent about Storybrooke-related drama, he actually hadn’t been sure what she was doing after he and his parents had parted ways, leaving him to his own devices in the condo his family now apparently owns. Juliet had, in fact, been the first person he’d contacted -- something else he doesn’t have the mental capacity to dwell upon at the moment.

“Look, I needed a friend, okay? And you’re a friend who understands.”

“I’m your friend?” 

“You’re fishing.”

“And you’re brooding.” She stares at him pointedly. “Look, I know things between you and your dad are sort of complicated --”

“--to put it lightly--”

“--but maybe you should give him a break. He’s trying to do a nice thing.” 

“A nice thing that I didn’t ask for,” he reminds her.He’d already told his parents that he didn’t want them to contribute to his medical school tuition. His father, being the man that he is, instead found a loophole in that declaration. “I don’t want his money.”

“Because it’s blood money.” 

“So you do listen.”

She rolls her eyes, but this time it’s accompanied by a smile. “Yeah, idiot, it’s what friends do.” 

“I’m your friend?” he parrots.

“Who’s fishing now?” Her eyebrows dance, and he stifles a smile. She then schools her expression into something more serious, and sits down her beer. “Gid, you’ve got to stop beating yourself up over things you have no control over, and start focusing on the things you can.” 

“What is that even supposed to mean?” 

“It means you’ve got to stop hating yourself for being related to the Dark One. Or Peter Pan. Or the Black Fairy.” She ticks off her fingers as she speaks, her tone growing more pointed with each name. “Yeah, it fucking sucks that all your dad’s money came from a dozen or so curses. But there’s nothing you can do about it except, I dunno, some good.”

“I think you’re completely missing the point.”

“I think you wear a cuff around your wrist to suppress your magic because you’re insanely afraid of going psycho like the rest of your family. I think you want to be doctor not just because you want to do good, but because it would prove you’re not some monster. I think you don’t want this place, not just because you want to strike out on your own, but because you’re scared that if you do, you’re no better than them.” She looks at him expectantly. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

It strikes him, not for the first time, that Juliet Jones is more than just the pretty party girl he’d compartmentalized her as for so long. In the past few months that he’d developed an odd sort of friendship with Juliet Jones -- one that could actually be considered friendship and not the awkward barely acknowledging one another dynamic they’d had for years back in Storybrooke -- he was still learning the ways in which she subverted whatever persona he had believed her to be.

He takes another swig of his beer. “You sure you’re not a psych student? Archie could probably use an intern.”

“Okay, first of all, you’re mixing me up with Robin. You couldn’t pay me enough to intern with Archie. Second of all, it would have been fewer words to say ‘you’re right, Juliet’. Significantly fewer.”

“Pithiness isn’t my forte, I’m afraid.”

“Oh fuck you,” she says, but she’s teasing him. “Tell me I’m right or I won’t help you anymore.”

“You’re helping me? And here I thought you were just calling me broody.”

“Oh my god, say I’m right or I’ll walk out with the rest of your beer.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.” To prove her point, she dismounts herself from the island and makes a show of walking to the refrigerator. She casually leans against the appliance, and crosses her arms. Raising a brow, she says, “Your move.”

He rolls his eyes. “You aren’t totally incorrect.”

She pauses for a moment, considering. Finally, she pushes herself off the fridge. “Close enough.”

Juliet walks over to him, resuming her position by his side. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, he can feel the warmth of her body against his, and he’s surprised at how comforting it feels. “The way I see it, is that you’ve been given a gift. You might not want it, but it’s a gift nonetheless. You and I both know how much rent costs here, and we both know how much debt med school is going to drown you in. This means less debt.”

“So you’re telling me to stop whining because I’ve been gifted the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars?” Gideon shakes his head. “Do you know how privileged that makes me sound. How many of my fellow students are drowning in money issues because they don’t have a father who can just buy them an apartment.”

“Well, yeah, I’m one of them. Minus the med school part,” she reminds him, and he winces. Gideon knows she’s received a decent financial aid package from Columbia -- it turns out, the Storybrooke police department doesn’t pay that well -- but she’s complained enough about student debt to know that it doesn’t cover everything. “But that’s the point. So many of your future classmates are probably losing their shit over trying to figure out housing options. And here you are with a perfectly nice second bedroom that you can rent out for practically free. You’d be a housing fairy. Which, to be fair, is far more than anything Blue has done for either of us.”

“If I rented it out for free, they’d think I was a serial killer.”

“That’s why I said practically.” 

What she’s saying makes sense. At the very least, it’s something that he hadn’t considered before. Not that he necessarily wants to admit that. “You’re just saying that because you want a cheap place to live.”

She laughs, legitimately laughs. “Please, there’s no way I want to live with you. I don’t want to know what sex noises you make. Assuming you have sex.”

“I have sex!”

“That sounds like something someone who doesn’t have sex would say.” She nudges his shoulder playfully. “But seriously, Gid, take the place. If you ask your dad to sell it, he would, but then some rich asshole would live in this gorgeous place instead of two med students doing the best the can to make the world a better place. Really, you’d be doing the neighborhood a favor.”

Gideon is shocked at how convincing she can be, even with the subtle jabs at his pride. She seems to know it too, because she’s staring up at him with an expression that can only be described as “I told you so,” and he both loves and hates it. “I know what you’re saying, and it doesn’t change the fact that my family got our money through incredibly dubious ways, and that makes me feel weird.”

“You’re acting like I have no idea how you feel.”

“Because you don’t know--”

“Do you how many people my dad has murdered? ‘Cause I sure as fuck don’t,” she asks him, effectively cutting him off. Her voice feels like a punch to the gut. “I know he’s killed like my great grandpa and fucking Merlin and who knows who else. And my childhood home? My mom got that via threatening the first owner because she was the Dark One.” 

“Juliet--”

“I know all of this. And I can’t beat myself up over it, because I’ll go crazy. Because at the end of the day, my dad is still a murderer, but he’s also the guy who read me bedtime stories each night and taught me how to sail and cut the crusts off my sandwiches. And my mom is my mom and…” Her voice breaks. He’s not sure what compels him to do it, but Gideon pulls her tight into a hug. He’s not sure if she’s crying or not, but he holds her tight and runs his fingers through her hair. It’s what his mother always did for him when he was sad. It’s what makes him feel better. “I know, okay? Maybe not exactly, but I know.”

“Okay, you know. I was wrong.” He continues to run his fingers through her hair, and she doesn’t stop him, so he continues to go through the motions.

Juliet pulls away from him, but only slightly. Their arms are still wrapped around one another and his hand is in her hair. If Rachel were to walk in -- she wouldn’t -- it would be easy for her to interpret the situation as something untoward, even if it isn’t. “Look, I can’t tell you what to do. But the way I see it is that you have the opportunity to do good. It can’t change what your dad did, but maybe you can change someone’s life. And if you change one person’s life, isn’t it worth it? And, yeah, you’ll be drowning in debt still, but there’ll be less of it, so maybe you can volunteer your time at a free clinic or go to some far off country after you finish your residency and save some babies. I don’t know. I just believe you should think about instead of writing it off completely, okay?”

Juliet stares up at him with such an earnest expression, her blue eyes shining, that Gideon wants to look away from the intensity of it all. He doesn’t. Instead he finds himself saying, “I’ll think about it.”

“Good.” Juliet disentangles herself away from him. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, he stuffs his hands into his pockets as she runs her fingers through her hair. “Are you going to be okay?”

He lets out a feeble laugh. “It’s not the end of the world. I’ll be fine. Just need some time to think.”

“Okay, good.” She smiles another one of her beautiful smiles before glancing at the clock on the oven. “Hey, I’m sorry, but I told Adam that I’d meet him for dinner soon.”

She looks apologetic, and he feels a bit disappointed. He decides not to dwell on why. “Don’t apologize. You didn’t know all of this would happen.”

“No, I didn’t, but I’m glad you called me.” She surprises him with another hug. It’s over before he even realizes it happened. “I could reschedule if you need me to.”

“Seriously, don’t worry about it. Enjoy dinner. Seriously.”

He watches as she slides on her shoes, balancing on one foot, then the other. Before leaving, he turns to him and says, “It really is a nice place.”

“I know,” he replies. Then she is gone, and he is one again alone in a home that may be his. And because of Juliet Jones, he might actually be coming around to that idea. 

  
  



End file.
